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The Whitby Esk Energy – Ruswarp Hydro

a community-owned 50kW Archimedes screw hydroelectric turbine on the River Esk at Ruswarp, near Whitby, North Yorkshire

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The scheme is run by volunteers through Esk Energy (Yorkshire) Limited, a registered society. Our main aim is to reduce the carbon footprint of the Esk Valley through generating renewable electricity. Learn – Share – Educate

In 2016, Esk Energy successfully applied for a grant from the Ernest Cook Trust to undertake a project with Ruswarp C of E Primary School to help them develop their literacy and numeracy skills by exploring how we generate electricity from their river. The grant was to enable us to undertake a project which would involve developing materials, a visit to the school to work with groups of key stage 2 children and then visits to the site for the children to see the turbine in action.

We developed two sets of resources to support literacy, numeracy and science for lower and upper key stage 2. The downloadable packs include workbooks, PPt slides and session plans. We also built a model to demonstrate how the turbine works.

Two classes visited site following sessions in the classroom.

Feedback from the school:

I’ve Got The Power! (14th September)

Torches and turbines… An electrifying day as we were visited by representatives of the local hydro-electricity project, Eureka. Workshops and a wander across to the enormous Archimedes Screw (based upon a design a mere 2,000 years old!) made for a fascinating morning!